A degree of integration in a semiconductor integrated circuit, particularly in an integrated circuit using a MOS transistor, has been increasing year by year. Along with the increase in the degree of integration, miniaturization of the MOS transistor used therein has progressed to a nano region. The progress in miniaturization of the MOS transistor gives rise to a problem, such as difficulty in suppressing a leak current, which poses an impediment to sufficiently reducing a circuit occupancy area while meeting a requirement of ensuring a necessary amount of current. With a view to solving this problem, there has been proposed a surrounding gate transistor (SGT) having a structure in which a source, a gate and a drain are arranged in a direction perpendicular to a substrate, wherein the gate is formed to surround a pillar-shaped semiconductor layer (see, for example, the following Patent Documents 1 to 3).
Patent Document 1 JP 2-71556A
Patent Document 2 JP 2-188966A
Patent Document 3 JP 3-145761A
In the SGT, a channel region is provided around a side surface of the pillar-shaped semiconductor, so that a large gate width is achieved within a small occupancy area. This means that it is necessary to allow a large ON-current to flow through the small occupancy area. However, if the source, drain and gate have a high resistance, it becomes difficult to apply a desired voltage for allowing the flow of a large ON-current, to the source, drain and gate. Therefore, it is required to provide an SGT production method including a design technique for reducing the resistance of the source, drain and gate. As another condition for allowing the flow of a large ON-current, it is also required to reduce a resistance of a contact.
In a conventional MOS transistor, a gate is formed by depositing a gate material, transferring a gate pattern to a resist on a substrate by lithography, and etching the gate material. In other words, in the conventional MOS transistor, a gate length is designed based on a gate pattern. In the SGT, a current flows in a direction perpendicular to the substrate, because the side surface of the pillar-shaped semiconductor serves as a channel region. Thus, in the SGT, a gate length is not designed based on a gate pattern but based on a production method, so that the gate length and a variation therein are determined by a production method.
In the SGT, as measures for suppressing an increase in leak current occurring along with miniaturization, it is required to reduce a diameter of the pillar-shaped semiconductor. It is also required to provide a production method capable of optimizing the source and drain to suppress short-channel effects so as to reduce a leak current.
As with the conventional MOS transistor, the SGT also has a need for reducing a production cost. For this purpose, it is required to reduce the number of production steps. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an SGT production method capable of obtaining a structure for reducing a resistance of a gate, a desired gate length, desired source and drain configurations and a desired diameter of a pillar-shaped semiconductor.